David Starkey

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Not to be confused with David Starkey (maritime historian).

Dr. David Robert Starkey (born January 3, 1945) is one of England's best-known historians, and a specialist in the Tudor period.

Starkey was the only child of poor Quaker parents in Kendal, Westmorland (now Cumbria), England. His mother, a strong personality, had a powerful influence on Starkey's formative years; he portrays his father as a gentle, somewhat ineffectual man.

Despite suffering from painful physical disabilities (polio and a double club foot), Starkey did well at grammar school and won a scholarship to read history at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, of which he is still a fellow. Here he came under the influence of G.R Elton. Their relationship was stormy. According to Starkey, Elton provided the stern father figure he had never had, against whom to rebel. Later in the 1980s, Starkey made a point of disputing Elton's view of the importance of Thomas Cromwell, arguing in the 1986 book Revolution Reassessed (which Starkey co-edited) that Elton's thesis about Cromwell being the author of modern government was wrong.

From 1972 to 1998 Starkey taught history at the London School of Economics. During this period, he embarked on his career as a broadcaster, and soon won a reputation for abrasiveness, particularly on BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze, a debating programme, on which he was a ruthless interrogator of "witnesses" examining contemporary moral questions. In the 1990s he presented a current affairs phone-in show on Talk Radio UK (since relaunched as talkSPORT) where his manner with callers served to bolster his rebarbative reputation. However, the programme, which he described as "three hours of brainy barney" was extremely popular. His rudeness has been singled out by his detractors. In the televised Trial of Richard III, he appeared as a witness for the prosecution, and accused the defence counsel, Richard DuCann, of having a "small lawyer's mind". Even the Richard III Society, in its magazine The Ricardian, admitted that Starkey's rudeness under cross-examination was the main reason why Richard III was acquitted.

His television series on Henry VIII of England, Elizabeth I of England, the six Wives of Henry VIII (The Six Wives of Henry VIII) and on the lesser-known Tudor monarchs have made him a familiar face. In 2004 he began a new Channel 4 multi-year series Monarchy, which will chronicle the history of English Kings and Queens from the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms onward. His greatest contribution to Tudor research has been in explaining the complicated social etiquette of Henry's household, exploring the complicated nature of Catherine Howard's fall in 1541/1542, and rescuing Anne Boleyn from the historical doldrums by persuasively proving that she was a committed religious reformer, keen politician and sparkling intellectual. Starkey has also rejected the historical community's tendency to portray Catherine of Aragon as a "plaster-of-Paris saint".

In October 2006 he started hosting the second series of The Last Word now known as Starkey's Last Word. He also makes regular radio broadcasts and contributes to many magazines and newspapers.

[edit] Personal life

Starkey is openly gay and is a prominent campaigner for gay rights. He is also an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. He currently lives in Barham, near Canterbury, Kent.

He is a member of the Conservative Party.

He is an Atheist.

[edit] Books

• This Land of England (1985) (with David Souden)
• The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics (1986)
• Revolution Reassessed: Revisions in the History of Tudor Government and Administration (1986) (Editor with Chrisopher Coleman)
• The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War (1987)
• The Inventory of Henry VIII: Volume 1 (1988)
• Henry VIII: A European Court in England (1991)
• Elizabeth: Apprenticeship (2000) (published in North America as Elizabeth: The struggle for the throne)
• The Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII (2003)
• The Monarchy of England (2006)

[edit] References

• Snowman, Daniel "David Starkey" pages 26 – 28 from History Today, Volume 51, Issue 1, January 2001.